a city on our knees
by Los Desperados
Summary: AU. "Everybody's got a past. Bottom line's how you deal with it." In which Jo meets the youngest Winchester, and isn't precisely excited about it.


**status **complete**  
prompt **the fact that Adam isn't getting half the love he deserves.**  
background **4x19, with an alternative ending**  
warnings **language, Dean-bashing**  
pairing **some UST'd Dean/Jo? Dunno.**  
notice **I kinda like playing with the POVs. Switch 'em on and off, from one person to another. 'Tis kinda fun. So, here we are, with Jo and non-ghoul Adam in Duluth, somewhere in 4x19. The Win-Bros (HAHA, NOT) have dumped their brother to Jo's care, who couldn't be less enthusiastic about it, but maybe the two of them can find a piece of themselves in the other in the end. There's slight Dean-bashing just because I felt like it; also, given Dean's reaction when he first met Adam, one would think that he'd be acting like a jerk. Plus, it was something I hadn't tried before, since I'm a Dean girl. Well, I'm going off for a week, so this is kind of a goodbye gift for you, guys. Peace.

* * *

**a city on our knees;**  
_look to those who've walked before, to lead those who walk after._

* * *

This had to stop. Seriously.

Jo didn't know what the Winchesters' impression of her was, but she was neither their nurse nor their babysitter. Alright, she could handle tending to a bullet or knife wound every now and then. She could even take care of a flu-suffering Winchester if the circumstances called for it, even though Winchesters weren't the greatest patients in the world.

In either of those cases, there was a chance to admire their toned bodies, after all. And Jo wasn't stupid enough to pass up the chance of seeing a perfectly sculptured body whenever she was offered to.

But taking care of their illegitimate half-brother, whose existence they'd just become aware of and who had been emotionally scarred after being attacked by ghouls — which, just for the record, _feasted_ on him, one of them while wearing his own _mother's_ face — was something Jo simply refused to do. She was not a goddamn babysitter, and this kid was barely a day past eighteen.

Well, fuck no. Jo wasn't going to take care of any other problem the Winchesters had. And she certainly wasn't going to babysit their (newly discovered) baby brother while they got all the action.

Then why was she making the kid hot chocolate?

Agh, this was so damn infuriating. Damn the Winchesters and their pretty faces and puppy eyes. She was sick of doing favors to them over and over again, especially since she never got anything in return. That shithead Dean _still_ refused to pick up the phone and give her a call; it was usually Sam who asked her the aforementioned favors. Well, next time they'd show up to her door, she'd just smile politely and say, "Hey, thanks for the extra trouble, but I'm gonna have to pass. Sorry that life's been screwing you over, but I'm perfectly content with my own problems. So, find another babysitter to clean after you. Sayonara." And that'll be that.

But for now, she was stuck with Winchester Traumatized Kid #3 under her care, so she'd have to endure another night — she hoped the two dicks wouldn't take more than twelve hours to get the job done, especially now that all cards were on the table — and at least try to offer the kid some hospitality, for two reasons. The first reason being that he was scared shitless and she didn't want him freaking out on her or puking all over the place.

The second was that she felt kind of sorry for him. Being a Winchester wasn't a good thing nowadays, and by the little information Sam had spared her, Adam would be spending much time with the indestructible duo from now on, so she doubted that he'd be getting any coddling or comfort during that. The brothers weren't exactly specialists on dealing with emotions, even their own. Or each other's, for that matter.

Jo slid the cup towards him and sat down a few feet away from the boy, not really up for invading his personal space, which could quite possibly lead into him vomiting all over her floor or something of the sorts. He barely registered her presence, but he mouthed a quiet "thank you" before bringing the mug to his lips. If it tasted like crap, he had the courtesy to not mention it (unlike _Dean_, who never passed up an opportunity to tell her that something she did _sucked_). Not that crappy tasting chocolate was his biggest problem at the moment, but still.

Jo watched the young man silently, etching his features to memory. He was fair colored — undoubtedly something from his Milligan side — with clear blue eyes and blonde hair, but his facial features were absolutely a trait passed onto him by John Winchester. The strong jaw, the straight nose and the almond shaped eyes were a trait all of John's boys shared. She briefly wondered if John actually had a word on the genes he passed onto his children. She wouldn't be surprised if he did. That man's connections were _scary._

However, if she'd stumbled upon Adam under different circumstances, it would've taken her a lot of introspection to tell that he was John's boy. Adam's features were Winchester-ish, alright, but they seemed softer somehow. Not so sharp around the edges. More _normal_. The kid's face sure wasn't that of a hunter. Though it could be, Jo mused, and it probably _would_ in a few months, if his brothers took him under their wing.

She felt a strong wave of compassion towards the boy.

"Did you know my da—John, too?" Adam asked suddenly, and Jo was taken aback. John Winchester was not her favorite at the moment. She vaguely noted that he refrained from calling him 'dad'.

"You didn't like him much, did you?"

Adam shrugged. "Can't really call him dad. I've only met him a handful of times in my life."

"Same here," Jo admitted.

"So you knew him," he stated, his eyes not quite daring to look up at her.

"Used to," Jo offered. "Before..."

Adam raised an eyebrow. "Before?"

"Before he died," Jo explained with a hoarse voice, leaning back against her seat. Being reminded of John's betrayal to her father was not something she cherished. She had a hard time trying to forgive the boys for being John's sons, which she had somehow done, but she wasn't prepared to forgive the man himself anytime soon, dead or not.

"You're angry," Adam noted. "At him. Or Sam and Dean."

"John," she clarified. "He killed my father. Or _got_ him killed. Whatever."

Adam's eyes widened, before he dropped his head. "I'm sorry."

Jo resisted the urge to snort. She'd heard apologies from both Sam and Dean, her mother and Bobby alike, for what John was responsible for, and now his youngest was also apologizing. Why? None of them were at fault. John's sons weren't responsible for their father's faults. It had taken her quite some time to realize it, but she had, eventually, and now all was good with the Winchesters.

Except the fact that Dean was still a dick, but _meh_. Nobody's perfect.

"Why?"

He seemed to be taken aback by her question. "He was _my_ father, too."

"Did _you_ kill mine?"

Adam blushed. "N-No."

"Then you can't be sorry for it," Jo concluded, feeling kinda tired of hearing apologies from everyone but the man responsible for Bill Harvelle's death. Not that there was even the slightest chance that John could apologize from hundreds of feet under the face of the Earth.

"Okay," Adam agreed finally, not in the mood to argue with a girl he had just met and who, incidentally, was taking care of him in an absurd way. He didn't feel like being forced to wait for his brothers out in the cold, so he shut his cakehole. "How long do you think they'll be gone?"

Jo stood up from her seat and stretched her arms behind her back. "They'll be back by dawn, probably. Maybe later."

After all, Windom _was_ a five-hour trip from Duluth. Which only served to raise her suspicions; why hadn't they taken Adam to Bobby's? Sioux Falls was much closer to Windom than Duluth was, and they shared a damn better relationship with Bobby than her. She waved the thought off. He was probably off state, and thus they had knocked on her door for help.

It took Jo a moment to realize that Adam was talking again. "They won't..." Adam's voice trailed off, unsure of how to make words out of his thoughts. "They're not gonna die out there, are they?"

Jo scoffed in annoyance. "No, they won't," she replied a little too quickly, before re-thinking that. "Then again, you can never be sure with these guys." The blonde hunter smirked. "Don't worry; I'm not keeping you if they do."

Adam hung his head in embarrassment. "I'm sorry for being a burden."

Jo waved him off, even though he _was_ a burden at the moment. Sort of. "It's not you. It's just that Sam and Dean need to learn a few things about people before they go around asking favors from them."

"So you _are_ mad at them," the youngest Winchester pointed out.

"Whose side are _you_ on?" Jo spat semi-irately.

Adam shrugged awkwardly. "Uh, nobody's. I'm too much of an outcast to be picking sides here."

Jo gave him a long, hard look before shaking her head. "Well, you've gotta stop feeling like one."

"Huh?"

"Trust me, when these guys get back and take you with them, you can't act like the third wheel. Dean's probably pissed and Sam's gonna play referee between you two, but what you've got to do is blend in. It's a hard life you'll be getting into, and you need them close. Attached to the hip, you know what I mean? Those two dumbasses; they're all you've got, and since they happen to be damn good in what they do, I'd suggest you keep 'em close."

It was disgusting how easily those words seemed to roll off her tongue. Jo had been the third wheel in the Winchesters' privé party times enough for her to be able to advise anyone else against it. But since Adam already had front row seats in_ that_ drama play, a little advice on how to deal with it by the experts could prove to be life-saving.

"I don't... It's not like I'm going to _live_ with them—"

Jo raised an eyebrow in mocking. "And what _are_ you gonna do? Go back to school and go on like nothing ever happened?"

Adam nodded after a moment of hesitation. "That was the plan, yeah."

She shook her head at his obliviousness. He wasn't gonna last a day without his brothers out there. But, then again, she couldn't quite blame him for not knowing what he was getting into. A few days ago, Adam had been a normal kid, living in a small, backwater town in Minnesota and studying to become a doctor or something equally acceptable by society. To discover that the Boogeyman wasn't only a horror story told by parents to scare off their young in order for them to go to sleep, that wasn't something you could digest overnight.

"Look," Jo started, slipping back on the seat she had vacated mere minutes ago. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you might as well screw that plan of yours."

The color drained from Adam's face. "What are you saying?" he asked slowly, his voice trembling. To Jo, he seemed to be on the verge of crying. But, if he had inherited a _tenth_ of the Winchester stubbornness, he wouldn't. And it kinda seemed like he had. Thank God for that. A sobbing nineteen-year-old boy wasn't exactly something she would have liked to deal with.

"What I'm saying is—your old life? You had better already forgotten about it, kid."

"But I'm enrolled at the University of Wisconsin! I'm studying pre-med! I can't just... go off on a _road trip_ with two guys I barely even know to _hunt_ _ghosts!_" Jo vaguely noted that his calmness was wearing off. About time, too. "What about _my_ life? I have things to do, places to go; I can't just leave all that behind! I..." He took a deep breath. "I have a life to live. One that I've been waiting to live for years. I can't just give it up."

In all honesty, Jo felt bad for the kid. It wasn't like her to be all compassionate and comforting, but he seemed to need it so badly. Mentally, she cursed at his brothers. Sam, that evil little bitch, had known all along about the kid's mental state. He knew that Adam would've been a mess, and he had gracefully omitted mentioning as much as a _word_ about it to her, leaving it to Jo to try and fix him up. When she got her hands on that fucking ogre...

Well, she'd probably not be able to do much, considering the size of that guy, but her shotgun was always within range.

And then she would break Dean's stupid nose with her right hook and the world would be full of sunshine and butterflies again.

Ah, the joys of having been raised at the Roadhouse.

However, as delightful as it would be for her to beat both Winchester dicks into a bloody pulp, Jo had to deal with the task at hand first; namely, Adam.

"Adam, I'm not gonna beat around the bush," Jo said honestly. "You can't go back to your old life." At this, Adam's face contracted in the same way Dean's did whenever he heard something that didn't please him. "You said that the ghoul took your mom's form and bit you, right?"

Adam nodded silently, expression intact.

"Those things are known for being shifters. What I'm saying is, they change forms, taking whichever they think will lead them to their next victim."

He stared blankly at her, an indication that he didn't understand shit from what she said. Jo groaned. He was lucky he had his brothers' looks, because it seemed that all of John's boys were partly lacking in the brains department. Except maybe Sam, but he did a bloody good job trying to take after Dean.

"Let me break this into simple terms for you, _scholar_," Jo began with a sarcastic tone. "Once that thing's bitten you, it can take your form. And since Sam and Dean are gonna kill it, that means it's gonna die wearing _your _face, ergo _you_ will be presumed dead by the authorities. Which means that you _can't _go back to your old life, since you're _dead _to the world."

"But I'm _not_—"

"Well, then be my guest and haul your ass to the cops. They're sure gonna be thrilled to see the living dead."

Adam opened his mouth to bark back something about how he'd _find_ a way to go back to his old life, only to close it again when he realized that he didn't actually have _anything_ to say. A pain in the ass as it may was, but he was stuck with Sam and Dean, and Adam knew that; deep inside his brain, he fucking _knew _that. And it pissed him off.

Without gracing the female hunter with another word or facial expression, Adam stood up from his seat — Jo raised an eyebrow; she'd come to believe that the kid had _glued_ himself on her chair, since he hadn't moved since the Winchesters dumped him at her place — and walked up to the window. When Jo realized that he wouldn't be moving for a while (he was watching the _rain,_ for Christ's sake), she popped open her laptop and began scrolling down the local paper. The only way she could take her mind off the fuming teenager in her living room and his brothers was through a case.

But, even after looking through three different newspapers, not even _half_ a sign of a paranormal activity came up.

_Of course._

Well, curse her luck. Sometimes, Jo actually believed in the fact that her mother was probably bribing all the newspaper managing editors in Minnesota to make sure they published nothing that could pique her daughter's curiosity and make her go digging up information on a possible case.

Which, if you knew Ellen, wasn't exactly hard to believe.

It was roughly an hour later that Jo tapped her laptop close and allowed herself a yawn. A quick glance towards the clock on her wall told her that it was well past midnight. Sam and Dean had been gone for less than six hours, and she doubted that they had gotten the job done already. Back by dawn they would be, indeed. She briefly acknowledged that the rain was still going on.

And that Adam was passed out on her couch.

_Shit._

Well, that was one of the reasons why Jo didn't want to do the Winchesters any kind of favors. Because it usually ended up against her favor. Adam was not the first member of the Winchester family that she had to take care of in her years of being their acquaintance. And they were all the same when it came to being tended to; impatient, un-cooperative and a pain in the ass.

That damn kid was slumped all over her couch, his ridiculously long limps taking up all the space, and to top it off, he was _snoring._ Clearly a Winchester; not an ounce of tact within that ridiculously huge body of his. And to think that, when he had first stepped into her apartment, Jo had taken a liking to the kid. He seemed polite and shy enough to sit in a corner with his head hung low. Oh, how looks deceive.

However, Jo was willing to overlook the Winchester attitude for once — especially since it wasn't coming from a full-blooded one. Adam was just a traumatized kid who would be forced to stick with Sam and Dean for the rest of his life. Thus, condolences were in due.

So, the youngest Harvelle withdrew a spare blanket from her closet and dumped it over Adam, in a poor attempt to offer solace. She walked away with a frown. She was becoming too much of a good person nowadays.

* * *

When Adam came to his senses, about four hours later, Jo was positioned on the armchair across from him, cleaning her shotgun and making salt rounds. Whether her mother liked it or not, she _was_ going to find a case, and since she had nothing else to do, she began preparing herself for one, while humming REO Speedwagon under her breath.

Adam, however, wasn't exactly calm after witnessing a woman — who, he had discovered, had a rather short temper — sitting a few feet away from him and cradling a shotgun at her hands. In fact, he had turned white as a sheet.

"Uh... Jo?" he croaked in fear, sinking against the couch.

The blonde hunter stopped humming and looked up to see him trying to become one with the leather of her couch. O-kay. So, he might have actually _been_ lacking in the brains department. "What?"

Adam swallowed hard, before choosing his next words very carefully. "I... I think I should get going."

Jo raised an eyebrow at the young man. Sam had given her strict orders — well, more like advice; she wasn't about to let herself be bossed around by _Sam_, of all people, no matter how huge he was — to not let Adam out of her sight. And letting him go out into the night definitely counted as such.

She was in the middle of finding an appropriate comeback when she noticed the way Adam was eyeing her shotgun, and she broke out in laughter. "Kid, I'm not gonna shoot you," Jo said between laughs.

Adam hesitantly raised an eyebrow. "You won't?"

Jo shook her head. "Nope. Unless, of course, you give me a reason to," she assured him playfully, before pointing to the gun in her lap. "It's loaded with salt. That's for ghosts, not humans." Her nose scrunched up after she spoke. "I mean, sure, it hurts like a bitch, but a shot from that definitely won't kill you."

Although Adam wasn't entirely convinced, he let himself relax and released the death grip he unknowingly had on Jo's couch. She didn't seem like the type who would hesitate to shoot him in order to prove her words. And he had better steer clear of getting shot with rock salt.

Rolling his neck in a vain attempt to release the tension there, Adam noticed that he was covered by a blanket. It seemed to be hand-knit, too. He smiled slightly at Jo's gesture. Perhaps she wasn't _that_ bad. After all, she had taken him in and taken care of him for the time his brothers would be gone. And when she had bluntly told him the truth about how his life was going to be from now on, she was only trying to help. Deep inside, Adam knew that living in denial wouldn't do him much good on the days to come.

"Hey, um," he started, earning Jo's attention. He nodded to the blanket. "Thanks for that."

Jo nodded back, before returning to her salt rounds. "No sweat. We wouldn't want you catching a cold, now, would we?"

"You know, there's no correlation between catching a cold and the actual cold," Adam offered with a small smirk, earning a raised eyebrow from Jo.

"Oh, college boy thinks he's smart," she said in that voice old aunts used whenever they pinched your cheeks until they turned purple. Adam blushed.

"So, uh, you're a... hunter, too?" he asked after clearing his throat awkwardly. Figures he'd get picked at for trying to be smart. But it was just that this situation was so uncomfortable that he needed to break the ice somehow.

"In the flesh," Jo remarked proudly, loading the rounds in her gun.

"Why?" he couldn't help asking. "I mean, why do this job, out of everything else you could be doing?"

Jo chuckled at his question. "Because someone has to, kid. Take a look at yourself, for instance. If Sam and Dean didn't do this job, you would've been dead. So, just be glad that we do."

Adam frowned. "So what, you're saying that you actually _like_ hunting ghosts for a living?" he asked in disbelief. "How do you even make a living out of _that_? Who pays you for killing ghosts? Who in their right mind _does_ something like that?"

Jo raised an open palm at him. "Whoa, one question at a time, kid."

"I'm not _that_ young, you know," he replied with a pout. Jo had to keep from laughing; he looked so much like Sam at that moment.

"Well, I have a good five years on you, so I can call you a kid all I want," she said playfully with a smile.

Adam's eyes widened. "No way."

"Looks deceive, _kid_." When she realized that it would take him some time to accept that she was actually older than him, Jo decided to change the subject of their conversation. "And to answer your question, yes, I like doing this job. I _chose_ to do it. As for payment... Well, our methods ain't exactly legal, so our payment doesn't come in legitimate ways either."

That seemed to shake Adam out of his trance. "You guys are _outlaws_?" the young man asked in horror.

Jo's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. "You've got to be kidding me. Do you _see_ anyone handing out paychecks for taking out the supernatural?" She shook her head, before murmuring under her breath, "Scholar my ass."

"What if you get _caught_?" Adam seemed positively terrified. Just what the Hell was he getting himself into?

"You don't," Jo answered without missing a beat. "You just go in, get the job done and get out without anyone noticing. You can't let yourself get caught because you were careless enough to make friends with the pretty girl down the street."

Although _Dean_ got pretty _friendly_ with most of the women they met on cases. But Adam didn't need to know that. Not that it'd take long for him to pick up on his brother's habit.

"But still, where do you find the money for food, gas, accommodation?" This day was getting worse by the minute for Adam, it seemed.

Jo shrugged casually, setting her fully-loaded shotgun on the coffee table before her. "Pool hustling, poker, credit card fraud—take your pick."

"Oh, God," Adam whispered, plopping back onto the couch. First, a monster wearing his mother's face attacked him. Then, two giants — also known as his brothers — practically abducted him and brought him to a stranger's house in Duluth and promptly _dumped_ him there. Then, Jo told him that he would be spending the rest of his life with two hunters of the supernatural, and _now_ he found out that they were outlaws, too. That was _too_ _much_. "You're nuts."

Jo grinned and Adam felt incredibly violated. She was _mocking_ him. "Welcome to our world, sweetheart."

* * *

"How much longer 'til they get back?" Adam groaned in frustration.

Jo, who had had just about enough of his whining in the last few hours, sighed, trying desperately to cling onto what little patience she had left. "It's almost morning, so unless they've gone and gotten themselves killed, they're on their way. So, sit down and shut the fuck up before I change my mind and shoot you."

Adam wasn't even fazed. They had gone over the same conversation so many times in the past few hours that Jo's threat wasn't even valid anymore. "You said it's loaded with salt."

"Well, I'm about to put my theory of whether rock salt can kill humans to the test, so you might as well be my test subject," she replied sweetly.

"You wouldn't shoot me," Adam remarked, the hairs on the back of his neck starting to stand up.

Jo released the safety of her shotgun. "Try me," she challenged.

Adam raised his arms in front of him in surrender, before going back to watching stoically the road, just in case the Impala showed up. Jo sighed in exhaustion and put the shotgun away. She had been up all night and her head felt as if someone was pounding on it with a hammer. When the Winchester brothers had dropped Adam at her place, she hadn't thought that he'd turn out to be such a prick. During the entire night, he didn't once shut that cakehole of his. What little shyness he had when he had first come through her door had been long gone after a couple of hours in her presence.

"Are you friends with them?" Adam's voice picked up again and Jo released a mental groan. She just couldn't catch a break, could she?

"Friends with _whom_?"

"Sam and Dean," Adam clarified offhandedly.

Jo snorted. "We're hunters. We don't do friendships," she reminded him.

He tilted his head slightly to the right. "But they trusted you enough to bring me here."

"Who can tell? Maybe we're all actually cannibals and they brought you here so I can kill you and then feast on your fresh meat," she replied, a sardonic smile playing on her lips. It seemed to actually have an effect on the young man, because his eyes widened in shock. Until she broke out in laughter.

"That wasn't funny."

"Sure it was," Jo said, before her expression got serious. "Look, kid. Hunters don't get attached to anyone, because if they do, then that someone's probably gonna end up dead. Our life is a dangerous one. And we don't drag other people in it, unless it's absolutely necessary that we do."

Adam scrunched up his face. "That doesn't answer my question," he said, before pausing. "Wait—did _they_ drag you into this?"

Jo was taken aback by that question. "Of course not. I became a hunter on my own free will and I don't regret a day of it. What I'm trying to say is that no, we're not friends, but yeah, we trust each other. Because, trust me, there are a lot of hunters out there who're totally nuts. Us? We're the sane ones. And so we call, ask a favor or two, give help on a case, those kinds of stuff." She frowned when Dean's face suddenly popped into her mind. "Well, _some_ of us do, at least."

"Sounds like you three got a past," Adam noted, his tone a lot less whiny than it used to be a few hours ago. Maybe he had _finally_ grown tired and would stop talking.

"Everyone's got a past," Jo countered nonchalantly, standing up from her seat. "Bottom line's how deal with it."

With that, she headed straight for her kitchen, hoping that a cup of coffee (or three) would help keep her eyes open for a few more hours until the brothers finally showed up. She had considered calling them, but it wasn't like they would've abandoned their baby brother in her apartment, right? They might have been dicks on some occasions — Dean more often than not — but family was their weak point. They would never abandon one of their own.

She wasn't surprised to hear Adam's footsteps behind her.

"So, I'm guessing I have to deal my past, and accept my future," Adam uttered after a moment of silence.

Jo placed the pot in the coffee maker and turned to face the young man with crossed arms. "That about sums it up."

"It's not gonna be easy, right?"

She dully noted how his eyes were half-lidded and his gaze was not directed at her, but at some blind spot behind her. "I'm not gonna lie to you, Adam."

Both were slightly surprised that she used his actual name instead of calling him 'kid'. "I don't want you to," Adam answered honestly.

"This life isn't for anyone," Jo said, licking her lips in the process. "Once you're out there, you have to sleep with one eye open. In the world of hunters, there's no time to be surprised—by _anything_. There's a lot to learn, and most of it ain't gonna be pretty. You're gonna break bones, get shot and God knows what else, before you can say Jack Daniel. You won't like it, Adam. It's gonna freak you out and make you wanna kill yourself so nothing else get the chance to."

Jo briefly paused, the memories from her first hunt back in Philadelphia flooding her head. She had been careless, even though fully informed. She had been inexperienced. And if it wasn't for Dean and Sam, she would've been killed in a dark basement by a freaky ghost.

"But you'll be fine," she concluded. "'Cause you've got Sam and Dean, and while they may not be experts on sentimental matters, they're damn good hunters. John taught them well. So, don't worry. They won't let anything happen to you, I swear. If there's one thing they'd give their lives for, then that's family."

Adam smiled. It was a genuine, if only a little shy, smile that she had seen for the first time since he'd been dumped here by the Winchesters. For the first time since she'd met him, Adam looked hopeful. Like it didn't matter that he was thrown into this life that nobody wanted, because he wouldn't give up. He would stick close to his brothers and learn from them, and hopefully survive long enough to become a hunter and save people himself. Ever since he could remember himself, he had wanted to become a doctor. Well, now he would help people in an entirely (but really not that much) different way.

He'd make sure of that.

A persistent knock on Jo's front door interrupted their moment, and Jo rose to answer it. By the sound of it, it was the Winchesters. She glanced at her watch on her way to the door. _7:35. _Right on time, too.

She pushed the door open to reveal the newly-appointed middle Winchester, who smiled awkwardly. Despite having talked things out, Jo supposed that it would always be a little awkward between her and Sam. Which was rather a shame, because Sam was actually tolerable, unlike his brother. The eldest one, that was.

"Hey," she greeted, and then raised an eyebrow when she realized that Dean wasn't by his side. "Where's your dumber half?"

Sam chuckled. "He's in the car, getting our things in the trunk."

"So, how'd it go?"

"We killed it," Sam answered. "Well—_them_, actually. Two ghouls."

Jo frowned. "Must've been nasty."

"Nothing we couldn't handle," Dean chirped in, having just climbed up the stairs leading to Jo's apartment. He didn't look half as happy as he tried to sound. "Hi, Jo."

_Probably pissed because of the whole deal with Adam_, Jo guessed.

"Hey," she threw back offhandedly.

"How're you doing, Adam?" Sam, who had slipped inside Jo's place, asked his younger brother worriedly, his voice laced with concern.

Jo had to push back a grin. For all his intimidating appearance, in actuality, Sam was like a big teddy bear, all cuddly and fluffy. That boy had a heart of gold inside that toned, rock-hard chest of his. Dean—

"Save the chit-chat for later, Sammy. Kid, you ready to go?"

—not so much. Seriously, that guy was such a _brute_. Jo was fairly certain that tact wasn't even a word in his vocabulary.

"Anytime," Adam replied quickly, straightening his back and avoiding to look at his eldest brother. He looked positively scared of Dean.

Jo snorted. _How typical._

"Good. Then, we're off," Dean answered just as quickly as Adam had, already turning to exit her apartment. Jo swore she heard him curse, and it sounded like he was in pain, but she didn't give that much of a damn to ask him if he was okay. Adam shot a worried look at Jo, who decided to intervene, if only for his sake.

"Hey, guys," she started, catching the Winchesters' attention. "Look; I know we haven't exactly been butt-buddies lately, but it has been a long night and this storm won't be going down anytime soon."

"What are you saying, Jo?" Sam asked with raised eyebrows, while Dean just eyed her in suspiciousness.

"What I'm saying is that I've got a spare room in the back, so if you guys wanna spend the night and get some rest—"

"We're fine, Jo," Dean cut in before she could finish with a voice that begged for her to start an argument. If only she wasn't so damn tired.

She fixed him a glare, anyway. "I wasn't talking to _you_, princess."

Dean growled, but Sam was quick to step up before he did or said anything both of them would regret. "Thanks, Jo. It means a lot. But we've already asked too much of you. It's best if we just hit the road."

Jo shrugged, her anger deflating. Sam could have that effect on people. "Suit yourself."

"So, Adam?" Sam turned to his other brother, giving him a meaningful look.

Adam opened his mouth to ask what exactly Sam was referring to, before he deciphered the meaning behind the look in his brother's eyes. "Oh, right!" With that, he disappeared from view, and they heard him scrambling to find his jacket in the mess that was Jo's living room. Jo had never been proud of her cleaning skills, anyway.

When he appeared next to them again, Adam's gaze was locked on the only woman in their party. "Thanks for everything, Jo," he said honestly, a small smile quirking up the left corner of his mouth.

Jo gave him a full one. "No problem, kiddo. Don't die out there, okay?"

"We won't let him," Sam's voice interfered.

"I know, Sam," Jo assured him, before turning to all three of them. "Just remember that this door's always open, if you need help."

Sam and Adam fixed her with a genuine smile each, and Jo felt butterflies in her stomach. What was it with tall men and dashing smiles that made her knees go jello? It was _so_ not fair. John Winchester had no right to have three gorgeous sons (could he be considered a sexist, by the way?), who all happened to be awesome people, too.

Or at least those were her thoughts until Dean decided to speak up again, and offer his smartass comments. That guy just wouldn't give her a break.

"In that case, could you maybe patch up my arm? That bitch took a good chunk out of it," Dean said while pursing his lips in a way that resembled a pout, but not so much.

It was only after a long, uninterrupted moment of Jo blankly staring at the eldest Winchester that she finally graced him with an answer.

And a fist in his pretty face. "I'm not your fucking nurse, Winchester."

(But she patched him up, anyway.)


End file.
